I would to God the ability of his purse were answerable to his sufficiency otherwise." This was certainly a most essential deficiency on the part of Lord Gray, and it will soon be seen that the personage of quality to be selected as chief in the arduous and honourable enterprise now on foot, would be obliged to rely quite as much on that same ability of purse as upon the sufficiency of his brain or arm.

The Queen did not mean to send her favourite forth to purchase anything but honour in the Netherlands; and it was not the Provinces only that were likely to struggle against her parsimony.

Yet that parsimony sprang from a nobler motive than the mere love of pelf.

Dangers encompassed her on every side, and while husbanding her own exchequer, she was saving her subjects' resources.

"Here we are but book-worms," said Walsingham, "yet from sundry quarters we hear of great practices against this poor crown.